Hanoi (VNA) – The National Assembly Standing Committee began its24th session on May 14 with discussions on the Government’ssupplementary report on socio-economic performance in 2017.

The report said eight out of 13 yearly targets assigned by the NA hadbeen overfulfilled and four fulfilled, while one target was not met.

In the initial report submitted to the NA’s fourth session in October lastyear, the Government expected five targets to be surpassed and eight fulfilled.

That means three more targets have been overfulfilled, which are a GDPgrowth of 6.81 percent (the forecast rate was 6.7 percent), an average increasein Consumer Price Index (CPI) of 3.53 percent (the forecast rise was around 4percent) and reductions of 1.51 percent in overall household poverty based onmulti-dimensional poverty standard and 5 percent in poor districts (the estimateddecreases were 1-1.5 percent and 4 percent).

Meanwhile, the target on reducing energy consumption per unit of GDP(energy intensity) was not met with a reduction of 0.5 percent, while thetarget and forecast decrease was 1.5 percent. However, the NA no longerrequires the annual assessment of this objective since 2018. Instead, the performancein this field will be reviewed every five years.

The revised total investment as percent of GDP was also lower than theestimated outcome reported to the NA in the 4th session.

The NA Standing Committee agreed that the economy posted uniformincreases across the board in 2017, which reflected the great efforts made bythe Government, authorities and sectors at all levels.  

They highlighted the impressive economic growth which was the highestsince 2011, and the record foreign trade revenues.

Chairman of the NA Committee for Culture, Education and Young PeopleAffairs Phan Thanh Binh noted positive changes in the export of agriculturalproducts, improved competitiveness and higher disbursement of Foreign DirectInvestment (FDI) capital.

The participants also took note of the regular increase in labourproductivity through recent years, but stressed that labour productivity basedon Purchasing Power Parity is still lower than that of many regional countries,and the gap is widening.  

The NA Economic Committee said however, besides industry and export, thepotential of other sectors as well as key economic regions has not been fullytapped. It also pointed to other problems in the economy, such as a lack oflinkage between production and market demands in the agriculture sector,resulting in falling prices after good harvest. The industrial sector stillfaces difficulties in raising products’ added value and in joining global valueand production chains.

The NA Standing Committee continued to examine the Government’ssupplementary report on socio-economic performance in 2017 and assess theimplementation of 2018 socio-economic plans and the State budget in the firstmonths of 2018 in the afternoon of May 14.

The 24th session of the NA Standing Committee will last through May 16.-VNA